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Man dies in street showdown with police

Although it’s not clear what happened on the 505 streetcar just before police opened fire, one thing is certain: Sammy Yatim, 18, is dead.

Duff Campbell, who was on that westbound streetcar on Friday night, said a young man — later identified by friends as Yatim — brandished a knife and ordered everyone off west of Bathurst St., near Trinity Bellwoods Park. Minutes later, police boarded the streetcar and fired several rounds.

“From the moment the girls screamed to the moment the kid was dead it was like two minutes,” said Campbell.

Yatim was killed around midnight, when police were called to investigate an incident aboard a streetcar travelling west on Dundas St. W., according the province’s Special Investigation Unit, which looks into incidents resulted in injury and death involving police and civilians.

Yatim was transported to St. Michael’s Hospital and he was later pronounced dead from multiple gunshot wounds at the hospital.

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“We understand that there was an interaction involving the male and officers and as part of that interaction a police firearm was discharged and the male was struck,” SIU spokesperson Jasbir Brar told CP24 reporters Saturday morning.

Sammy Yatim's profile photo on Facebook. (VIA INSTAGRAM)

When Heather and Martin Baron first saw a stalled streetcar, they just thought it was broken down. But as they got closer, they saw about five officers swarming the front door of the streetcar, yelling at a knife-wielding man beside the driver’s seat, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!”

Next they heard numerous gunshots in succession. Martin Baron saw the young man standing at the front of the streetcar when the police opened fire.

After the first shot, he didn’t see Yatim anymore.

“Everything happened within seconds. A police officer got on the streetcar from the back door. Another from the front. We heard (the sound of a) Taser and then more gunshots,” said Heather Baron, who, along with her husband, recorded the police confrontation with their iPhones and posted the video online.

Rosemary Pimentel has lived at the same house on Bellwoods Ave. since she was four years old, but she said she’s never seen anything like this.

“It was insane, it was like a movie,” she said.

She was in her room late Friday night when she said she heard someone say “drop your weapon” and then, almost immediately, a series of gunshots. She remembers hearing a Taser, but she said she thought she heard it after the gunshots.

Ambulances came to the scene within minutes and onlookers watched in horror as paramedics performed CPR and then loaded the victim onto a stretcher to be taken to hospital.

Campbell, who was within inches of the knife when it was being brandished, said he thought the victim was crying out for help.

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt anybody,” he said. “He could have hurt people and he didn’t.”

Majed Yatim, who identified himself as Sammy Yatim’s uncle, said he was still dealing with his nephew's sudden death.

“It's unbelievable. He was just a child,” he told the Star Sunday morning. "I am still grieving right now."

He said that Sammy and his family moved to Canada from Syria four or five years ago.

Vahe Baghoomian knew Yatim from their neighbourhood, near Sheppard Ave. and Highway 404. In shock Saturday, he said the idea of Yatim pulling a knife on people is absurd.

“That’s not him,” Baghoomian said.

Baghoomian said Yatim was a sweet, friendly kid who was close to his family and on “the right path.” He was studying business and had graduated from Brébeuf College School, a Catholic high school in North York.

“He’s a neighbour, he’s a brother, he’s a friend,” Baghoomian said.

Police cordoned off Dundas from Claremont to Grace Sts. and north to south from Plymouth Ave. to Bellwoods Place for investigation until shortly after 11 a.m. Saturday.

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